If word-of-mouth advertising isn't included in your
marketing plan, it should be. That's the message of longtime
pulpit-pounders on the subject Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba,
authors of Creating Customer Evangelists.

They assert that the cacophony of sales messages out there is
deafening and desensitizing. McConnell and Huba's solution is
to encourage customer evangelism, or word-of-mouth advertising.
It's the simple idea of getting people to talk to others about
your product or service, and before you know it, buzz is
created.

Godfrey Harris, a national management consultant from Los
Angeles and author of Don't Take Our Word for It: Everything You Need
to Know About Making Word of Mouth Advertising Work for
You, offers ideas and examples you can extrapolate from.
One of my favorites is finding a way to send money back to your
customers, because "they won't stop talking about
it." It's a favorite because it happened to me. I bought a
new car and, a week later, received an unexpected check for $20,
which they described as an extra rebate for some reason that
escapes me now. But Harris is right--I couldn't stop talking
about it.

The message is this: Build an ad if you must, but building
customer goodwill can pay off even more.

Jerry
Fisher is a freelance advertising copywriter and author of
Creating Successful Small Business Advertising.